Loe raamatut: «Alaskan Ambush»

ONE

The gunshot cracked loud in the snowy silence, confirming Kate Dawson’s worst fear: someone wanted her dead.

So she ran. She didn’t look around, didn’t try to identify where it had come from, because it would almost be impossible to tell in the winter darkness with trees surrounding her, and if she didn’t run, she might get hit.

Dying wasn’t an option for her, especially on someone else’s terms. No, if Kate died young, it would be from her taking her outdoor adventures one step too far, not from whatever it was she’d stumbled into when she’d gone home tonight. Whoever was after her had been in her house in town, had ransacked it completely, like they were looking for something. Kate didn’t have what they wanted, didn’t have a clue what it might be, but knew she needed to get out of there fast. Shivers had run up and down her spine on the walk from her house to her car; she’d known even then she was being watched.

She ran faster, legs burning as she powered through the powdery snow toward her cabin, the one place she might have a chance to escape. Kate dodged another birch tree and powered up the last hill before her cabin. Less than a quarter of a mile. She could do it, even with the backpack on her back. She’d never been so thankful to be in good shape.

As the bag slammed in rhythm against her back, she called herself every kind of fool for not mentioning to her brother Noah that she’d felt like she was being followed. She knew he was already worried enough that her home had been broken into. As chief of the Moose Haven police, he would have known what to do and would have mobilized the entire department to help her. Except she hadn’t known what kind of trouble she was in, hadn’t been sure if he could help and hadn’t wanted to bring danger to her family’s doorstep by going to their lodge.

So instead she’d driven around town, trying to lose whatever tail she had, and finally parked her car at the Hope Mountain Trailhead and headed for the safety of her cabin. Her plan had been to stay for a few days, try to figure out who could be after her and why, and alert Noah via the satphone she carried in her pack.

Something else to be thankful for in addition to her fitness level—she was always prepared in the backcountry.

Another pop and snow flew less than ten feet to the right of Kate. She could see her cabin now, not that it did her any good. Or did it? She might be able to hole up there. She had a .44 in her backpack in case any confused bears had awakened from hibernation for a snack. But that seemed like a bad plan. Unnecessarily dangerous.

Still, it was all she had. Get in the cabin, shut the door, get her own weapon out as fast as possible.

Fear clawed at her throat, made it hard to breathe, and Kate hated the sensation. She was rarely afraid for her safety—years taking risks in the backcountry had seen to that—but she hated feeling powerless.

She swallowed hard. Braced herself for the fight.

Because a person couldn’t run forever—she’d spent the last decade denying that was true. But out here, facing a cold-blooded killer’s bullets?

The only way through a problem was through it, just like her dad had always taught her.

With a last burst of speed, she made for the door, shut it behind her and took a deep breath before bending down to get into her backpack, remove the gun and the satphone. It was past time to call Noah.

As she did so, she looked around at her cabin, ready to assess the scene like she would in one of the disaster scenarios in one of the backcountry survival classes she’d attended for years. This was different than facing the elements, or even wildlife, but hopefully the skills transferred. They were all she had. The cabin was destroyed, just like the main floor of her house. The cushions had been ripped from the wood-framed futon that sat against the wall with the window that looked out into the woods. That would be the most likely place for an attack against her to originate from, if her assailant didn’t come straight in the door. The drawer of the little side table had been pulled out and lay cracked on the floor and the books had all been pulled off her bookshelf.

Kate had her house, her car, her phone, a camera, this cabin. That was the extent of her worldly possessions, at least those that might be worth stealing. Not that this felt like simple stealing to her at all. This wasn’t a crime of opportunity. She was being targeted.

Why?

She ran her hands along the cold wooden grips of the .44, took a deep breath and hoped she’d be strong enough to use it if she had to. Kate hated the idea of killing anything, especially a person, but if someone broke in here intent on killing her...she wasn’t opposed to self-defense.

Another gunshot, this one so loud she knew her pursuers must be right outside the cabin. But if so, why hadn’t it hit the cabin, shattered a window?

More gunshots, these farther away.

Kate tightened her grip on the .44, frowned. Two sets of shooters. Both shooting at her, or shooting at each other?

The shots paused.

The cabin door creaked.

Kate raised the .44, hands trembling more than she wanted to admit, and waited for her shot.

* * *

The cold of the snow was the first thing that registered in Micah Reed’s mind when he came to. He blinked his eyes against the darkness, could make out the shapes of dark trees around him.

How long had he been unconscious? He rubbed his throbbing head, the blackness threatening to pull him under again. He wouldn’t let it. He had to get up, get away from the scene of the ambush that had taken place. He and his partner had thought they’d been prepared to make this arrest, but something had gone wrong.

Micah focused on the pain in his upper arm, willing it to help him stay conscious, grounded in reality. It gave him something to grit his teeth against, another reason to fight. He struggled to sit up, to get his bearings and figure out how far he’d made it from Jared Delaney’s cabin.

His partner of three years was lying dead somewhere behind him, on the cold Alaskan ground, shot dead by criminals they’d been attempting to apprehend and arrest.

He still didn’t know what had gone wrong, though there would be plenty of time to analyze every aspect later on when he had to fill out the incident paperwork. But right now all Micah knew was that they’d been so sure they had had what they needed to arrest Jared and Christopher Delaney to take them down for their part in a ring of thefts from several places in Anchorage: museums, high-end gift shops, even hotel lobbies displaying Native Alaskan artwork that the group later sold. They’d been confident the two brothers were the heads of the operation, though not desperate enough to pose a huge danger.

Of course every arrest had danger in it. Everything he did as an Anchorage police officer did—traffic stops included. It was part of the job, a risk inherent in it, and one Micah had accepted. He’d known one day he might die doing what he thought was right, protecting people who were more and more resentful of that protection.

He hadn’t counted on losing a fellow officer, though. He’d assumed his commitment to not let that happen would be enough, would somehow keep those around him safe.

He’d thought wrong.

Micah swallowed hard. Thinking was good, it was better than letting himself fade back into unconsciousness, but he needed to get up, get backing this, do what he could to arrest them on his own. Now that he knew they were willing to kill...making the arrest solo wasn’t ideal, but he’d do what he had to do.

He pushed himself up, the cold of the snow stinging his bare hands as he did so. His gloves...where...? That’s right, he had taken them off when they’d approached the cabin and shoved them in his pockets. He felt for them now but they were gone. Probably lost in the pursuit, when they’d realized their tip was a setup and the Delaneys were waiting... When Stephen had gotten shot and Micah had managed to drag him away from the scene only to watch his life ebb away under a spruce tree...

He owed it to Stephen to make sure justice was done here.

Although...

He forced his mind to focus, to go back to the ambush. The one where they should have been able to arrest the Delaneys, put an end to their crimes and tie the entire case up with a nice bow. But the Delaneys’ cabin had been guarded by far more than two men. He wasn’t sure how many. Four? Six? Only three well-prepared and well-armed men? He didn’t know. Easy enough to explain, as the Delaneys had men working under them. But something rubbed him wrong about that, his mind wouldn’t let that answer be sufficient.

It hadn’t seemed like the Delaneys were the ones calling the shots. They weren’t the ones yelling orders; there’d been someone else, a man, but his voice was too foggy in Micah’s memory to do any good.

Which meant they’d missed something in their investigation. Missed someone.

Micah rubbed his hands on his pants, glanced down at the blood running down his arm. The wound had stopped bleeding when he was still but had picked up some now that he was using it again.

He needed to get moving. He could feel the edge of his mind growing fuzzy, maybe shock setting in, maybe the beginnings of hypothermia, he didn’t know. They’d come prepared for the hike to Jared Delaney’s cabin but at the last minute he’d left his backpack with some gear behind in the patrol car. Time had been of the essence and he’d thought it would be better not to be weighed down by too many safeguards.

Stephen had protested, as usual. They balanced each other out, Stephen’s safety-conscious streak and Micah’s willingness to take chances. They’d both had on their vests, should have been well enough protected had the Delaneys and whoever was with them not had such a high-caliber weapon. Why the round had hit Stephen and not Micah, who’d been only eighteen inches away, he didn’t know. The men had been aiming at both of them, Micah knew that, but guilt still ate at him. Why Stephen? Why not him?

But he couldn’t begin to think it through right now. He owed it to his partner to finish what they’d started.

He couldn’t think about this anymore. He had to do something. Find the Delaneys. No—foolish with only one officer. Better to focus his energies on getting off this mountain—ironically enough, called Hope Mountain—and into Moose Haven to see a doctor.

He’d thought he’d be able to come down here for a few hours, arrest the Delaneys and leave. When he and Stephen had discovered the Delaneys’ connection to the little Kenai Peninsula town and found evidence that their cabin on the outskirts had been used for illegal activities related to their theft ring, they’d thought it was a straightforward mission. Find the cabin, arrest the two brothers. No trip into Moose Haven proper necessary.

Nothing had gone as planned. And Micah felt like he’d been sent straight back to square one.

Now instead of avoiding the town and the people in it, he was going to have to head straight into the heart of his past, back where he’d been born and spent the first sixteen years of his life before his parents had moved to Anchorage for work and taken him with them.

Micah kept aware as he walked, scanning the woods, which were darkening. He glanced at his watch. Three o’clock, almost sunset here in the middle of January, at least not long before it. The darkness would make it easier for him to hike down undetected, but he didn’t relish the idea of finding his way in the deepening blackness. He had a flashlight—that hadn’t fallen from his belt, thankfully—but he couldn’t use it without risking detection. Micah wasn’t sure if they were after him or not, but figured there was a good chance. They wouldn’t want to leave anyone alive.

He didn’t like feeling hunted.

Micah crept along as quietly as he could, feeling keenly the difference between apprehending suspects on the city streets he was accustomed to and this kind of backcountry work. The last time he’d spent substantial time hiking on a mountain like this had been in high school, on this mountain, before his life had changed course dramatically. Back when he was practically an honorary member of Moose Haven’s Dawson family.

He wasn’t far from the Dawson lodge now. If he got down this mountain—no, when, because failure wasn’t an option—the first place he’d go was to find Noah and talk to his friend for the second time in fifteen years. He’d called Noah last week to give him a brief rundown on the Delaneys, since it seemed they were using Moose Haven as a base of operations even though most of their crimes were actually perpetrated in and around Anchorage. If Noah had been surprised to hear from him, he’d hid it, treated him the same as he had when the two were inseparable, chasing each other through these woods playing cops and robbers, honing their sense of justice as they played as kids.

Movement in front of him caught his attention, off to the left in the trees. He squinted in the gathering darkness. One of the Delaneys, but he couldn’t tell which. Where was the other brother? It was too much to hope for that he’d been injured during their earlier skirmish, because Micah had been coherent enough to know that only he and his partner had been hit by the bullets that flew.

He hated it when it felt like the bad guys were winning.

Keeping quiet, he crept toward the shadowed figure, followed him at a distance. Was he tracking Micah, but poorly? Or had he given him up for dead and was doing something else now?

That’s when he saw another figure, up ahead in the trail, just obscured enough by a stand of trees to be safe for now, but wouldn’t be for much longer if he or she was who Delaney was tracking. It was a woman, petite, but in excellent shape given the pace she was keeping. It wasn’t quite a run yet, but close, and she held herself tensely, like any second she’d sprint away.

Run. He tried to silently will her, eyes darting from her to Delaney, both of them too far away from Micah to do any good.

As he watched them, his foot caught on something. He glance down—tree root—and in the time it took him to look back up, a shot was fired.

Had Delaney fired it?

Micah assumed so, because the woman, whoever she was, was at a sprint now. One of the brothers must have fired the shot. Her pace in this snow was impressive; Micah looked at where Delaney had been.

Nothing.

He’d lost him in the dim midwinter light.

Biting back his frustration, he unholstered his own service weapon, which was thankfully still at his side, and moved forward. His arm throbbed and he realized he’d be shooting with mostly one hand, since his other arm was not able to grip as tightly as he was accustomed to.

He hurried through the woods, staying parallel to the trail, watching.

The sound of another gunshot gave him a chance to pinpoint Delaney’s location. There. Not far from the cabin the woman was running into.

Micah couldn’t let him reach that cabin.

He fired two rounds at Delaney when he had a clear shot, thankful that the last bit of daylight was enough. Any darker and he’d have had no choice but to put his weapon away. Micah had learned gun safety here in the woods, from Alaskans who took their weapons too seriously not to be safe with them.

Delaney fired back, reminding him of earlier, outside the Delaneys’ cabin. Remnants of the firefight echoed in Micah’s mind and he swallowed hard, his partner’s yell so loud in his ear he could almost promise it was happening right now.

He couldn’t get derailed by that, had to focus on right now.

Micah returned fire. God, help me keep it together. Make him stop shooting, and let me check on that woman. His prayers were disjointed but sincere. He shouldn’t be alive right now; that bullet his partner had taken had been meant for him. And this had been primarily his case.

God must have some purpose in keeping him alive. And that meant He wasn’t finished with Micah yet.

Help me, God.

Seconds passed. Nothing. Only silence.

Micah swallowed hard, moved through the trees toward the cabin, around to the opposite side where Delaney had been shooting. Darkness was almost all encompassing now, providing him the cover to get to the door. Hopefully.

He pushed at the door, surprised it wasn’t locked.

And found himself staring down the barrel of a .44 Magnum.

Held not by one of the Delaneys, but by a woman who looked uncannily like a girl he’d known fifteen years ago. She wore a winter hat that her dark hair spilled out of at the bottom, in silky brown waves he’d always wondered what it would be like to touch. Her eyes were mossy green. Focused right on him.

“Kate?” He barely breathed the word, heart squeezing in his chest.